Alleged Windows support scammer forfeits money earned by “fixing” PCs

Victims may not get their money back, though.

Well, maybe this guy wasn't quite as smart as Heisenberg.

A man accused of tricking PC users into thinking they had viruses and then offering to "fix" their perfectly fine computers has agreed to pay back every penny he allegedly received in the scam.

Navin Pasari is a defendant in one of six complaints that the Federal Trade Commission filed in September 2012 against people and entities accused of leading Windows tech support scams.

"According to the complaint against Pasari and his co-defendants, the defendants placed ads with Google, which appeared when consumers searched for their computer company’s tech support telephone number," the FTC noted in an announcement today. "After getting consumers on the phone, the defendants’ telemarketers allegedly claimed they were affiliated with legitimate companies, including Dell, Microsoft, McAfee, and Norton, and told consumers they had detected malware that posed an imminent threat to their computers. The scammers then offered to rid the computer of the non-existent malware for fees ranging from $139 to $360."

Pasari did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to a proposed final judgment and order in which he will forfeit $14,369, "which is the amount of money Mr. Pasari received from the other Defendants," the document states. The money is being held in escrow and will be transferred to the FTC, assuming the order is approved by a US District Court judge.

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'Gate to Hell' guardians recovered in Turkey

Archaeologists digging in Turkey have found the guardians of the "Gate to Hell" -- two unique marble statues which once warned of a deadly cave in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, near Pamukkale.

Known as Pluto's Gate -- Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin -- the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition. It was discovered in March by a team led by Francesco D'Andria, professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento.

"The statues represent two mythological creatures," D'Andria told Discovery News. "One depicts a snake, a clear symbol of the underworld, the other shows Kerberos, or Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of hell in the Greek mythology."

Rolled onto itself, the snake looks threateningly toward anybody trying to approach it, while the 4-foot-tall Kerberos resembles the Kangal, the Anatolian shepherd dog.

"It's a pretty scary statue," D'Andria said.

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Right, that's IT: We'll encrypt INTERNAL traffic to thwart NSA, says Yahoo

NSA! gets! no! free! access!, claims! Mayer!

Yahoo! is going to start encrypting its intra-data-center traffic and will offer a similar service as an option to webmail users next year, CEO Marissa Meyer has pledged.

"I want to reiterate what we have said in the past: Yahoo has never given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency. Ever," she said on her Tumblr page – which is now the preferred method of corporate communications following Yahoo!'s $1bn acquisition of the site.

"There is nothing more important to us than protecting our users’ privacy. To that end, we recently announced that we will make Yahoo Mail even more secure by introducing https (SSL - Secure Sockets Layer) encryption with a 2048-bit key across our network by January 8, 2014."

Last month documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden claimed that the NSA and Britain's GCHQ have been tapping into the fiber used by Google and Yahoo! to connect their data-center traffic. The scheme, dubbed MUSCULAR, operated outside the US, to stay within the remit of the national laws.

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Official releasing what appears to be original court file authorizing NSA to conduct sweeps

The director of national intelligence on Monday night released what appeared to be the original court document authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct sweeping collections of Americans’ communications records for counterterrorism purposes.

The order, signed by the then-chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was among nearly 1,000 pages of documents being released by James R. Clapper Jr. in response to lawsuits and a directive by President Obama. The documents also describe the NSA’s failure to abide by court-imposed rules to protect Americans’ privacy, and show that the agency was more interested in collecting cell site location data than it had previously acknowledged.

The opinion signed by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly permitted the NSA to gather in bulk information about e-mail and other forms of Internet communication such as e-mail addresses, but not the content. Its true scope, however, was unclear. Three pages describing the categories of “metadata” that the NSA proposed to collect were redacted.

Although the date was blacked out, the opinion appeared to be the order that placed the NSA’s Internet metadata program under court supervision in July 2004, according to an NSA inspector general report leaked this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Prior to that date, the NSA had been collecting the e-mail records without court or congressional approval as part of a secret terrorist surveillance program authorized by President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

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With Banks Slow to Lend, Small Businesses Seek Alternative Funding

When it comes to securing a loan for a small business, it’s natural to think a bank is the best bet. And that may be true, but a loan may be more difficult to secure than you think.

Pepperdine University’s Private Capital Access Index, which examines business and private capital, had some interesting findings for the second quarter of 2013, as detailed by the Coleman Report:

Of small companies that were in search of funding, 59 percent targeted banks. The next highest percentage looked to business credit cards (57.2), personal credit cards (49.9), personal loans (48.4) and friends and family (44.2).

The success rate turns that list upside down. Seventy-one percent got funding assistance from friends and family, but only 27 percent did from banks.

What to do when banks give you the stiff-arm? Some businesses turn to alternative financing, in which loans are more accessible and faster, and not necessarily dependent on collateral. But these loans or cash advances can cost much more in the long run.

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Walmart: Won’t Raise Wages, but WILL Hold a Canned Food Drive for Its Own Employees

In case you needed proof that Walmart is actually the worst…

An employee from a Canton, Ohio, Walmart store shared the above picture of a food drive being held for other employees.

Wait. What?

That is correct. Walmart is asking employees to donate food items to make sure that other employees can have a nice Thanksgiving. There are so many things that are wrong with this that I don’t even know where to start. First, let’s take a look at some of Walmart’s stats:

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AP Photos: Prospectors Seek Fortune in Legal Pot

SEATTLE (AP) — Dot-bong, Marijuana Inc., the Green Rush: Call it what you will, the burgeoning legal marijuana industry in Washington state is drawing pot prospectors of all stripes.

Microsoft veterans and farmers, real estate agents and pastry chefs, former journalists and longtime pot growers alike are seeking new challenges — and fortunes — in the production, processing and sale of a drug that's been illegal for generations.

In Colorado, the only other state to legalize marijuana, existing medical marijuana dispensaries can begin selling for recreational use in January. But in Washington, where sales are expected to begin in late spring, the industry is open to nearly anyone — provided they've lived in the state for three months, pass a background check and raise any money from within the state. Washington on Monday began accepting license applications from those eager to jump in. By midafternoon, hundreds had applied.

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